Title: Halama
Characters: Malik, gen.
Word count: 804
Warnings: None. Angst? I don't even know.
A/N: This was .. actually the prose sample for an app into a game on LJ - but I kind of liked it, so I figured I'd put it somewhere. Also, the title roughly translates from Arabic to "to dream."
-o-
He'd found himself unable to sleep most nights; the small pile of pillows and blankets he called a bed in the back of the Bureau was comfortable enough when he could bring himself to lie down in the first place, but it was never a lack of comfort that kept him awake until the first morning light peeked over the horizon in the distance. It was never a lack of fatigue, just for the simple fact that when he caught sight of his own reflection there were always dark circles beneath his eyes, like shadows that had been placed there on purpose, painted by a hand whose talent lay in realism. He looked so much older now than he had not so long before, and while he was more than sure that the lack of sleep did nothing to help matters, it was not the only contributing factor.
When he did sleep, there were dreams. They could have been called nightmares if he'd cared to refer to them as such, but he maintained the impression that recognizing them for what they were gave them a power they lacked if he ignored that fact completely – even if he always woke drenched in a cold sweat that was so far out of place given where he'd taken residence, the taste hanging in the stale air around him always retaining a tinge of dust, no matter whether or not there had been a breeze to carry the hint of it that far back into the Bureau.
Those dreams always left him with a feeling in the back of his throat that he was seconds away from choking, breath hitching when he tried to swallow around it, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth no matter how many times he tried to wash the feeling away with the small cup of water he always kept within arm's reach. It stayed, and stayed, suffocating him with the very thought that he couldn't even take a proper breath to feed his starving lungs, and if he'd been living his most recent days breathless and beneath the guise of being just as cold as he always had been, it was all just as much as he could take without tearing through that thin veneer of fabricated composure with the intent of having it all come crashing down around his ears.
His dreams were always about his brother. Never about the times they'd spent as children, drawing lines in the sand or taking refuge beneath the shade of a large tree when the heat became too much. Never about the evenings spent in the same bed before they'd grown too old for that level of closeness, Malik telling stories of Sinbad the sailor and his travels across the sea. (Kadar had always asked why he'd had to venture so far away from home, and he'd never had an answer, even after all these years.) Never .. never about anything that could bring him a bit of happiness when the sky was overcast, or a bit of warmth to a heart that had long since gone cold.
It was always blood. Blood and the sound of steel meeting flesh and bone, his brother's breath catching as his lungs filled with the heaviness of something that was so much more dense than oxygen. It was always the look in those eyes – and maybe it was that that caught him the most off guard – the fact that there was no conviction. Just a sense of understanding, as though he'd known from the very beginning that he would not make it out of Solomon's Temple with his life still held in his hands. There was never any heartbreak, or accusation, or fear.
At least, not on his brother's part.
There was something about that that should have told him it was enough that he had made it through. That it was all right to have lived where another had died. But Malik .. Malik was stubborn. Headstrong, Kadar had always said, but it had always been the defining attribute that had allowed him to get where he was. Never a negative thing. Never, until now. And even then? He knew his brother wouldn't see it as such, and that was reason enough to keep him awake on the nights that he didn't dare try to sleep for knowing what would come of his attempts.
It would be a very long while before he could find the peace of mind to sleep through the night without waking to the sound of his brother's voice in his ear. The ghost of a memory, what remained of a life where he could still feel something more than the texture of parchment beneath calloused fingertips and the weight of a quill.
A very, very long while.